Discussion: Horrendous mixed-age couple scenario, please help

29 March 2019, 10:58 am

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Information and advice resources - Age UK

Total Posts: 3211

Joined: 7 January 2016

Hi folks, we’ve received an enquiry in relation to a mixed-age couple and it’s looking to me like they’re going to lose more than £40 a week once the wife reaches state pension age. I’ve spent a long time trying to work through this and can’t see any obvious way around the loss but wanted to check I’m not missing anything obvious (always a possibility)

Current entitlement

Wife – Disability Living Allowance (DLA) High rate mobility component £59.75 a week (disregarded)
DLA High rate care component £85.60 a week (disregarded)
Carer’s Allowance (CA) £64.60 a week (taken fully into account as income)
Housing Benefit £80 a week
Income –based Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) – see below

Husband – Personal Independence Payment Standard rate daily living element £57.30 a week (disregarded)
CA - £64.60 a week (taken fully into account as income)

Son – Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit, no other benefits in payment

ESA entitlement weekly
• Personal allowance £114.85 couple rate
• Support component £37.65
• Carer element £36.00
• Carer element £36.00
• Enhanced disability premium £23.55
• Total applicable amount - £248.05
• Lees income ££129.20 (two times CA)
• ESA payable £118.85 a week

This should passport them to full Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support,but there are minor differences in what’s actually in payment but not bothered about these for now.

State Pension age entitlement – Once client reaches State Pension age (SPa) on 6 July 2019, her ESA claim must stop as this cannot be paid past SPa. It looks to me from article 6(2)(b) of the Commencement Order bringing in the mixed-age couples changes that this also means that the HB claim also closes as this prevents a claim for pension-age HB from taking place. Because they both claim CA for each other, as well as the fact of the son living with them as a non-dependant, they are not entitled to a Severe Disability Premium with either the ESA claim or the HB claim, their only choice at this point is to claim Universal Credit (UC) instead.

I’ve attached a calculation for their provisional UC entitlement which appears to me on the face of it to be correct. On these figures, I estimate they will be approximately £43 a week worse off (the figures are slightly inaccurate as the ESA calculation above is for 2018/19 amounts whereas the UC calculation is for 2019/20 amounts).

Remedies – I did wonder whether they should consider giving up the two CA awards as that would raise the possibility of a double Severe Disability Premium (SDP) then being included in the ESA claim, which in turn would currently prevent them making a UC claim. However, the fact of the son living with them as a non-dependant means that they cannot get any SDP as things stand. In order for the son not to be counted as a non-dependant, he would need to establish an award for PIP daily living component in his own right.

The other option that I considered was whether the husband might become the HB claimant but I cannot see that is going to work either. When the wife reaches 65, her ESA claim must stop which also means the HB claim should switch to pension-age HB, except that article 6(2)(b0) prevents that happening and so any HB claim would also stop, regardless of which person was the claimant. The husband cannot now establish an entitlement in his own right to ESA because UC is fully rolled out and the husband having entitlement to ESA is the only way that the HB award could continue in payment past the wife reaching SPa.

Any thoughts? Any ideas for what they could do here? I can’t see any way around this.

[ Edited: 29 Mar 2019 at 11:01 am by Paul_Treloar_AgeUK ]

File Attachments

Emquiry_ref_CAS-397717-L4V0R7.pdf (File Size: 1010KB - Downloads: 2083)

29 March 2019, 11:26 am #1

HB Anorak
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Benefits consultant/trainer - hbanorak.co.uk, East London